Free Men

And the battle that this man Savonarola fought, the man who wrote that hymn, and played his life in the process, is not over and won't be over until Jesus comes back. Whenever there is revival, whenever there is a move of power in the body of Christ as we're seeing now, you also will have the battle with legalism, always. You can see legalism in other places and among other people and in other so-called churches, but we have a tendency to miss it right under our noses.

There is no place where we can find more help in this battle and more vision that we really need than in the book of Galatians. And the entire book of Galatians is actually summed up, I believe, in the first verse of chapter five. I'm going to read that at the start.

For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand fast, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. There's a word that we hear everywhere we go these days where believers come together, and it's the word submit.

Wives are to submit to their husbands. Believers are to submit to one another in the fear of God. We are to submit to authority inside the church and outside.

We are to bring this spirit of lawlessness and rebellion, which is not only abroad in the world, but stirring very actively in our own hearts into subjection to Jesus Christ by submitting to him and every authority which stands under him. In the kingdom of heaven, there is always order from the top right down to the bottom. Those four glorious creatures that are worshiping before the throne of God 24 hours a day, gladly submit to the Holy One up there on the throne.

And the 24 elders gladly and freely, you know, of their own will, fall on their faces before the throne and cast their crowns down there. And every creature that stands on that sea of glass freely submits to the authority of the living God. We see in our Lord's ministry that at every point he submitted to the will of his father.

I do nothing of myself, nothing. I do only those things which please him. It's my meat and drink to do the will of him who sent me.

And if we are walking in the spirit of God, we will submit to the will of our Lord Jesus in exactly the same way that he submits to the will of his father. But we need to be sure when we submit that we are really submitting to Jesus. There is at this hour a great danger that we're going to be turning submission, the act of submission itself, into a virtue, and that we can get so caught up in our submitting that we forget to watch who we're submitting to.

I am held accountable if I submit to a false prophet, because my Lord warns me to beware of false prophets. And it won't carry any weight at all if I say, but Lord, I was submitting, you know, I was just going along submitting. He told me how I could know them by their fruits.

And I'm going to be held accountable if I submit to the yoke of slavery and legalism of any kind. There are right now all over the earth, including Detroit, men who are just waiting to get their hands on people who submit indiscriminately to any authority that comes along. You know, the minute they find an assembly of believers anywhere where people are learning to submit, they're going to be right in there waiting to take advantage of the situation if they can.

And they do it so subtly. They have us thinking that we're doing such wonderful things, very, very good things. They have us convinced that we have gained so much by submitting to those things which they have added to Jesus Christ, that we have advanced far beyond where we once were in our simple walk with Jesus.

But when our walk with Jesus is no longer simple and clear and direct, chances are we are no longer walking with Jesus. Chances are, subtly, in some way, we have begun to fall under the yoke of bondage to some tyrant who is dominating our lives through a form of religious legalism. You have to watch this.

Paul took the gospel to the province of Galatia. Through him, Jesus Christ was presented as crucified for the people's sins, and they believed, and the confirmation of their belief was that the Holy Spirit fell upon them. Miracles began to happen in those churches in Galatia that confirmed the presence of God there.

A church came into existence that was obviously marked by God's living presence. These people were the body of Christ in Galatia. It was beautiful.

But when Paul left, immediately a group of men comes in that starts to twist and pervert this thing. And they begin to get the people to submit to things in addition to Jesus Christ that have no connection with Jesus Christ at all. Circumcision.

Certain days, months, seasons have to be observed that Paul never told them about. New rules, new disciplines. And as soon as Paul gets wind of this, he writes some very strong words at the very beginning of the book.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.

So now what these false teachers did was very simple. They took the principle of submission, which the people in Galatia understood very well, and they switched the object. They substituted themselves and their beautiful teachings for Jesus Christ.

And for a while, nobody even noticed it. And perhaps it could even be that things began to go even better in those churches. As far as anybody could tell, you know, people still talked about Jesus, still talked about the Holy Spirit.

The crowds were getting better than ever, but Paul could sense it. He knew immediately what was going on there. What was really happening that was that underneath the surface already, these people were coming under a yoke of slavery heavier than they had ever known before.

When the principle of submission is detached from Jesus and used by a man or a group of men who presume to put themselves in the place of Jesus, very impressive things happen. Things that look extremely wonderful to the natural eye. You go into that place and you just can feel the power and you're staggered by the numbers of people who flock to it.

And you say to yourself, the blessing of God is for sure on this place. But as you allow yourself to be drawn into this, you find that you are being asked to submit to things that make it clear that this is what Paul calls another gospel. You are being brought into bondage to things that Jesus Christ never commanded.

These movements produce people, men and women, who are joyful and productive only as long as they can drink in the atmosphere of that cult, take them out of the cult and put them in the real world, make them stand on their own two feet among real people with real problems, and very quickly they fall apart. And then it becomes obvious that these people are not the joyful, victorious saints they appear to be, but that beneath their uniform smiles and their uniform praise the Lord, they're nothing but spiritual robots, puppets. Jesus Christ does not produce such men and women.

He doesn't do that. You know, and, you know, somebody may be saying, wait a minute. Last week he talked about, you know, getting off everybody's back, you know, and being open.

And now he turns around and talks like this. What's going on here? Both things have to be said. This is something that needs to be watched.

Jesus doesn't produce robots. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.

All things have passed away. Bondage has gone. And behold, all things have become new.

Liberty has come. Freedom. If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

But because of false brethren secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom, which we have in Jesus Christ, that they might bring us into bondage, says Paul, to them we did not yield submission even for a moment, that the truth of the gospel might be preserved to you. Note well, there is a time to submit, and there is a time to refuse to submit even for a moment. And we better know which is which, especially at this hour.

We need to know that. It will be helpful to know when to submit and when not to submit if we will keep several things in mind. First of all, we are bond slaves only unto Jesus Christ.

Now, it is true that we have come into our freedom through submission, but not indiscriminate submission, not stupid submission, not blind, unthinking submission, but submission to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world, submission to Him who shed His blood to atone for our sins, and who is our Lord. And we belong to Him, that's for sure. And indeed, husband, wife, son, daughter, brothers, sisters, our own lives are thrown from the throne of our hearts.

So that Jesus may reign there alone. And every morning when we get up, we better get up there and make sure that Jesus is still alone on the throne. And I haven't put one of my loved ones up there, too.

And from that throne, He shows me where to submit and where not to. From the throne, Jesus enables us, helps us to fit into the body in the right way. He stirs us in with brothers and sisters who not only comfort us, but irritate us and misunderstand us.

You know, from the throne, He gives us the wisdom that we need. He gives us the power that we need. From that throne, He fits us in and anoints us with power and shows us which way to go.

See, but our fitting into the body of Christ is always, always tied to our relationship with Jesus. And that's a relationship with Jesus, my friend, which is living and direct and personal and trusting and obedient. The second thing, which will help us to know when to submit and when not to submit.

We are never to allow any man or woman to manipulate us, nor are we to manipulate anybody else. Now, there's authority in the body. We're set under authority.

That's true. But the authority in the body is always conformed to the spirit of Christ. And the spirit of Jesus Christ never violates the human will.

If God wanted to disregard our wills, He would never have had to send His Son to the cross. He could have just snapped His fingers like that and turned us into a race of sweet, smiling zombies. But that's not what God wants.

He wants sons and daughters. And He's willing to run the risk to get these sons and daughters who are free of allowing multitudes of people to look directly into the face of His Son and choose hell. God will not manipulate.

Satan is the one who manipulates. And when in our fellowships we allow ourselves to be programmed by those above us in order that we may program those beneath us, even if we're all being programmed to praise the Lord, the thing is false. It's of Satan.

And that's exactly what Satan was trying to do in the passage which Gordon read. He was trying to program Jesus off there in the wilderness, and Jesus did not submit to him not an inch. And every day of our lives, the evil one is trying to program us and trying to get us to try to program other people.

And if you have a passion for program, find yourself a computer. If somebody comes around trying to program you, tell them to get lost. And the third thing we have to keep clearly in mind, if we're going to know when to submit and when not to, is that our connection with God is through faith and not legalism.

O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith or hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun with the spirit, are you now ending in the flesh? Did you experience so many things in vain? Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? No, if I believe in Jesus, I'm going to do what he says, I'm going to obey him. And these people who say, I believe, I believe and never do what he says, only think they believe.

But if I try to do good works, see if I try to perform those things, those good things, which believers are supposed to be doing without having my mind and my heart and my eyes and my ears on Jesus in faith, I'm going to end up in the most terrible kind of bondage. Because the evil one's going to send people along my way, who are going to tell me exactly what I need to hear to get me really feeling guilty. Good, correct things.

It sounds correct. But the evil one never tells me where to get the power to do these things. He never points me to the cross.

And the harder I try to obey the rules, the more tormented I become and the more enslaved I become to the rules and to the people who lay those rules down. What must we do to be doing the works of God? The people ask Jesus and he answered and still answers. This is the work of God that you believe on him who he has said, trust me, walk with me, follow me, I'm going to guide you, I'm going to give you the power to do everything I want you to do.

And you're no longer going to be slaves to doctrines or men or spirits. You're going to be free men and free women doing the father's will. Hastening in the coming of my kingdom, fitting in with each other and enduring persecution.

And all through this, you're going to have a joy which no man will take from you in this world or the next. Let's pray.